“Infamy!
Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!”
have become The La’s stock in trade - dodgy album, ineptly distributed singles, unsavoury sleeves, unreliable producers, inappropriate personnel, insufficient time to write, “Top Of The Pops”, extraneous pressures galore - and we can hear him cry above all the calls for his head, those immortal words: “Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!” Before anyone's had the chance to thrust their drawn daggers between his shoulder blades, he throws himself off pop's dangerous precipice into the history books. How the mighty fall. Of their own volition. Julius Caesar probably had more diplomacy when it came to affairs of state, but Lee Mavers and The La's are just as all-conquering on tour. Lend them your ears. While you still can. When The La's return to the London stage, they do so in a dramatic environment rarely witnessed on pop' s proscenium arch. Typecast as awkward, temperamental, churlish, jumped-up scallywags with poker-faces, the La's will be keen to prove themselves above and beyond such an obvious role. Sure, they might seem arrogant, but what great pop band hasn't? Call it resolute independence if it makes you feel better, but The La's are still fearsome dictators of a pugilistic pop stylishness that is all their own.  The sheer defiance of songs such as 'Timeless Melody' and 'There She Goes' can only be afforded by their unabashed naivete, innocence, simplicity, honesty - speculative descriptives which have found new currency in The La's material. But within every song there lies the troubled soul aching for intimacy while belly aching about the shattered illusions that come with it. Therein lies the rub of all great pop music. Frustration, displacement, at-oddness with the outside world while secretly trying to figure it out and become a part of it.In doing so The La's conjure some surreal, unnerving and mostly neurotic visions from a life of irretrievable corruption and wicked constrictions. This of course, also applies to the music industry itself where The La's find themselves irrevocably tied, an industry that makes many demands of its performers and very few promises. If The La's sometimes let their suspicions run to crude paranoia and their live persona to the point of bolshie detachment, perhaps we can understand why. They are not the most communicative of bands and the more they withdraw, the more we seem to want of them. The more lazy, slovenly and begrudging they are, the more vociferous our applause. If The La's lack lust sometimes, it's because they refuse to feel duty bound or obliged. If they lack restraint at others, it's because they are disdainful of measure or refinement. Such is the friction of a live La's performance; risky, no guarantee, potentially explosive, dynamic, but always loaded with tension. The La's are moody, but never mannered. The La's are full of the indescribable pleasure of pop music, but totally devoid of accountability. Lee Mavers opens his mouth to sing. That is all. Look into his mostly inscrutable eyes and you might catch an exquisite glimpse of what it all means to him. You might not. But reading between the perfectly drawn guitar lines, you won't fail to recognise the profoundest belief the The La's were born brilliant and shouldn't need the dubious validation of hit records and packed houses to prove it over and over again. At their best, The
La's inhabit those precious moments of peace and disquiet when words fail
and
No promises. Nor should
there be. All we will say is... Stop me if you've heard this one before,
but... Beware the ides of March. Hail Caesar!
|
